In this paper we examine the multiple environmental effects of policies promoting biofuel production from agricultural crops. We develop theoretical and empirical frameworks and provide an integrated economic and ecological modelling approach: an economic model of farmers’ decision making is...

This study assessed the preference for and efficiency of land tenure contract arrangements in rice farming in West Java, Indonesia. Specifically, it examined the transaction costs associated with land tenure contracts, the land tenure contract preference, the efficiency of land tenure contracts,...

The purpose of this paper is to examine politically sensitive food safety problems from the viewpoint of political economy. The model was built in order to clarify the behaviors of consumers and politicians, employing the prospect theory and the median voter theorem. Major findings and policy...

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential of clustering in the development of agriculture and rural communities in China. We shall examine in detail the food industry, which is the link in the food chain that propels the industrialization of agriculture, and identify instances of...

This paper explores the current status of contract farming in China by examining data from a survey of Chinese householders. The survey indicates that the actual proportion of householders engaged in contract farming is relatively low and significantly less than the proportion of householders...

Mass media plays a crucial role in information distribution and thus in the political market and public policy making. Theory predicts that information provided by mass media reflects the media’s incentives to provide news to different types of groups in society, and affects these groups’...

A key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influences the allocation of public resources. In this paper we exploit a unique survey data set from nearly 2450 randomly selected...

The introduction of decoupled direct payments in the EU was a substantial change of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2003. After decoupling direct payments from production, it has become evident that distributional objectives are the major justification of farm payments. There are three...

This paper examines how jointness of environmental benefits and environmental heterogeneity affect auction designs and the potential benefits of green auctions over conventional flat-rate agri-environmental policies. A sealed bid green auction is used to promote an agri-environmental program...

There is growing interest in the rural non-farm sector in developing countries as a contributor to economic growth, employment generation, livelihood diversification and poverty reduction. Access to infrastructure is identified in some studies as a factor that affects non-farm rural employment...